Morals and Quandaries
by radredknuxfan
Summary: A psychotic ex-Interpol agent with a long history of battles with the Cooper Gang is determined to eliminate them by any means necessary. Will Sly and the gang be able to survive? And can Sly even go as far as to break his long-held code and kill someone if it means his survival? Warning: Possible Character Death. Set between Sly 2 and 3. Please Read & Review! Thanks!
1. Chapter 1

Okay, I've decided to cancel You Will Remember Me, just so you guys know. It's way too ambitious a project for me to handle, especially considering how long the chapter for Episode 1 was. So, I'm moving back to Death of Morality, but now it has a new name, which I'm sure you've noticed on the link. So anyway, let's get going.

* * *

It was a bustling night in the city of Paris. There were many people lining the streets, enjoying the night life. Our focus, though, is on a large building near the outskirts of the city. This building was actually a large mansion, and it was currently playing host to a lavish party put together by a large tiger named Henri Armaund. As his guests were busy milling about and socializing with each other, Armaund was spending his time inside his office, checking out the jewels that he has amassed inside his safe.

"Ah, my little beauties. I wish that I would be able to get some money from you, but unfortunately I cannot. That would involve getting into contact with a fence, and that would blow my cover. So it looks like you and I are going to be spending some more time together."

Armaund then shut the safe and spun the lock before heading out the door to join the party. Unfortunately for him, it turns out that he wasn't the only one in the vicinity of the room. A gloved hand suddenly appeared outside the window, slowly reaching down and opening the window, before the rest of the figure slipped through the opening, revealing the master thief Sly Cooper.

After shutting the window, Sly took a look around the room and smiled, not seeing any security cameras or alarms around the room.

"Man, this guy's asking to get his stuff stolen." he said to himself as he made his way over to the safe.

"Bentley, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Sly." said a nasally voice from the other end of Sly's earpiece.

"I've made it into Armaund's office. There are no cameras or anything around, so I think we should be in the clear."

"Good work, Sly. We've already got the combination from the recon, so get those jewels and get out of there!"

Sly was about ready to crack open the safe, when he noticed a painting leaning up against the wall just below the safe. He decided to tell Bentley about it, just to be safe.

"Hey Bentley, don't most people usually keep their safes behind paintings?"

"What are you getting at, Sly?"

"Well, I just noticed a painting below the safe, which I'm assuming is probably meant to be that kind of painting."

"Oh no." said Bentley, realizing what was going on.

"What? What's wrong?" asked Sly, confused.

"You'd better move fast, Sly. Armaund probably forgot to put the painting back in front of the safe, so there's no telling if he's going to come back into the room to do it."

Unfortunately, he couldn't finish unlocking the safe in time, as the door handle suddenly started to move, implying that someone was opening the door.

Sly immediately reacted, shooting away from the safe and into the closest dark corner he could get to in time.

It turns out that Bentley was correct in his prediction, as Armaund came back into the room intending to replace the painting. But before he could do it, he noticed that the rug next to the safe had been kicked up a bit, piquing his interest.

Sly silently swore, noticing the rug and realizing that Armaund now knew there probably was someone else in the room. As Armaund began looking around the room for the intruder, he quickly ran through his options in his head.

Sly knew that he couldn't take Armaund on one-on-one, as the tiger was a former French Foreign Legion soldier, as well as a former bodybuilder, so that was out.

The dark corner that Sly was hiding in was also too far from the window, so he most likely would end up getting caught trying to sneak out.

So, the only things that he could think to do was either wait until he leaves, or try and knock him out with the cane. The look on Armaund's face probably meant that he wouldn't be leaving until he found the intruder, so Sly was forced to go with Plan B.

"Sly, do you read? What's going on?" fretted Bentley on the other end of the line.

Sly obviously didn't answer. His focus was entirely on Armaund, as he spun his cane around in his hand.

Eventually, Armaund did in fact make his way over to Sly's hiding spot, having exhausted all of the other possibilities in the room. Sly immediately readied himself, crouching down and brandishing his cane in his hand.

Once Armaund was close enough, Sly sprung out of his hiding place, swinging his cane up high above his head. Armaund was unprepared for the sudden appearance of his intruder, so he froze as Sly brought the cane down as hard as he could on to Armaund's head.

After Sly landed on the floor, he immediately got into a fighting stance, expecting to have to defend himself, but Armaund began to fall forward, forcing Sly to backflip out of the way so as to avoid being stuck under 300 pounds of unconscious tiger.

A few seconds later, Sly let out a breath he didn't know he was holding in, finally confident that the tiger wouldn't bother him. But before dealing with the jewels, he decided to call Bentley, who was currently freaking out in his ear.

"I'm okay, Bentley. I ran into Armaund, but I managed to knock him out."

Sly could hear an audible sigh coming from Bentley's end. He then made his way over to the safe and cracked it, grabbing the jewels and leaving his calling card.

"I'm on my way back to the safe house. Don't start the card game without me."

"Ha-ha, Sly." said Bentley sarcastically.

* * *

After Sly made his way out of the mansion and back on to the rooftops, he began crossing from rooftop to rooftop, making his way back towards the safe house. Once he reached the city itself, he decided to take a little break, thinking that he deserved it after pulling off a heist like that.

So, he made sure to check that there were no guards around before sitting down on the edge of the roof he was on and setting the bag of jewels next to him.

As he took in the sights of the nighttime skyline of Paris, his thoughts drifted to Carmelita. He wanted more than anything to be able to be together with her, but the fact that they were on two different sides of the law was the one thing that prevented him from finally making his move.

As he considered the possibility of maybe hanging up his cane, he failed to notice a red dot that was slowly making his way up his body until it reached right between his eyes. But what he did see was a flash of red light in the distance.

He didn't think. He just reacted, falling backwards as a shot rang out, just missing the raccoon by a few inches. He sat back up a few seconds later, breathing heavily as he registered what just happened.

"Was that Carmelita? When did she start using actual bullets?" he said to himself.

But then he realized that Carmelita wasn't so desperate to catch them that she needed to resort to lethal force.

Sly didn't have any more time to think about it, as another shot rang out, which went right through his hat. He immediately jumped to his feet and began running, leaving the bag of jewels behind as he realized that they would just slow him down.

"Man, Bentley's not going to be happy about this." Sly thought to himself.

Sly quickly made his way across the rooftops, constantly moving around and ducking every so often so that he made a difficult target for the shooter.

Eventually, he came up to where the safe house was, but at this point he was starting to get tired. So he gave one last push of energy, leaping off of the building next to the safe house and bounding his way inside the door, shutting it behind him.

* * *

As Sly sat down on the floor in front of the door catching his breath, Bentley and Murray were staring at him curiously from the table in the room.

"You okay there, buddy? You look like you've seen a ghost." said Murray.

Sly was indeed as pale as a sheet. However, he was able to get up from the floor and walk over to the table before collapsing into one of the chairs and shivering.

Worried, Bentley wheeled over to Sly and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Did something happen out there, Sly? You can tell us."

Sly finally sat up and began speaking.

"I was on my way back from the mansion, when I suddenly started to get shot at by a sniper. I came this close to getting my head blown off."

Sly held two fingers a few inches apart to simulate exactly how close he came to getting killed. He was then about to put his head down, when he noticed the looks on Bentley and Murray's faces.

"What? You don't believe me?"

"Well, admittedly, yeah. Carmelita's never used actual bullets when chasing you." said Murray.

Sly once again sat up, exasperated.

"Look, it wasn't Carmelita. I know that for sure. And if you guys don't believe me, take a look at this."

Sly took off his hat and showed the bullet hole to Bentley and Murray. Both of them adopted looks of shock on their faces.

"Oh my god. I can't believe someone would actually want you dead so badly that they would resort to shooting you in the middle of the city. Frankly, I'm surprised there isn't panic in the streets right now."

"Believe me, Bentley. I'm just as surprised as you are."

"So do you have any idea who was shooting at you?" asked Murray.

Sly shook his head.

"I was too busy trying not to get shot to see who was shooting. Besides, they were using a sniper rifle, so they were most likely too far away for me to see them anyway."

The room soon fell silent as the weight of what Sly has just went through hit the three of them. Bentley then decided to break the silence.

"Look, I think that we should probably stay inside for the night. There's no telling if the shooter is probably still looking for Sly."

"Can't argue with that." said Sly as he returned his head to the table.

Bentley turned around and began heading towards his room when he suddenly stopped, having just remembered about their original job before all the craziness happened.

"Hey Sly, where are the jewels that you got from Armaund?"

"On a roof somewhere in the city. I had to leave them behind because they would slow me down while I was dealing with the sniper."

Bentley sighed. He knew he should have been disappointed in the loss of money for them, but he was at least thankful that Sly was okay.

"Alright, tomorrow morning you can head back out and see if those jewels are still there."

Sly saluted before once again collapsing on the table.

After Bentley went into his room, Murray decided to head to bed as well, so he stood up and was about to head to room before deciding to give one last vote of confidence for Sly. So he walked around the table and placed a hand on Sly's shoulder before beginning to speak.

"Don't worry, buddy. We'll find this guy and take him down."

Sly looked up and smiled.

"Thanks, pal."

Murray then headed off to his room, Sly doing the same a few minutes later.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day came with everyone on the streets going about their business, completely unaware that there was a sniper in their midst last night.

Meanwhile, at the Cooper Gang hideout, Sly, Bentley and Murray were already awake, and Sly was just about to head out to hopefully retrieve the bag of jewels he left behind that night.

However, Sly looked noticeably more nervous as he poked his head out of the door, looking to see if the sniper was still there. This only ended up annoying Bentley, who wheeled up to him and started speaking.

"Come on, Sly. Do you really expect this guy to still be there in broad daylight? There'd be mass panic in the streets if somebody fires a gun!"

"Yeah, I kind of figured that, Bentley. Still, I'd rather play it safe. Besides, the guy might have a silenced gun. Nobody's going to hear that over the commotion."

Bentley sighed.

"Just go. I'll keep an eye out."

Sly nodded, although he still felt apprehensive about everything.

* * *

After heading out the front door, Sly immediately climbed up the street light next to the safe house and jumped on to the roof. He began hopping along the roofs, making his way towards the area where he remembered leaving the bag, while also keeping an eye out for any laser sights.

Thankfully, there were no guards patrolling at this time of day, so Sly's attention could be fully focused on getting to the bag and getting back.

Eventually, Sly made it outside of town and reached the area he was looking for. Unfortunately, his distracted state led to him barely missing a jump, and nearly dropping to the ground, but he grabbed on to the ledge and hauled himself up.

Sly decided to wait for a few minutes to catch his breath and get refocused, not wanting to deal with that again. After he was ready, he launched off of the roof he was on and continued on his way, finally reaching his destination a few minutes later.

As he came up on the roof in question, he saw the bag was indeed still there, but it strangely was in the middle of the roof rather than near the edge where he originally left it.

Sly was confused for a second, wondering if he tossed the bag and didn't notice due to the gunfire he was avoiding, but then he realized that he probably would have remembered doing that.

Sly racked his brain, trying to come up with an explanation as to how the bag got moved, when he suddenly figured out that the shooter must have had something to do with it somehow.

As much as he wanted to grab the bag and go, he didn't trust the fact that it was going to be that easy. There most likely could be a trap waiting for him if he tried it, so he pulled out his Binocucom and called Bentley.

"Bentley, I'm at the roof where I left the bag. It's still there, thankfully."

"That's great! Go ahead and grab it and head back to the safe house." said Bentley.

"Yeah, I'd love to, but there's one problem. I remember leaving the bag near the edge of the roof last night, and now it's been moved to the center."

Bentley paused as he thought about what was going on.

"Hmmm…I'd bet my shell that our mystery shooter probably has something to do with it. It's probably some kind of trap."

"Yeah, I had the same idea. Any thoughts on what I should do?"

"I would probably just try staying out of sight. From what I can see, I'd guess that he probably has his rifle trained on the bag, so be quick about it."

Sly hung up the Binocucom and put it back into his pouch, before taking a look at the roof and weighing his options. He could see a few spots for cover around the roof, but the area where the bag is was wide open, so he knew he was going to have to dive for it.

He took a few minutes to prepare, breathing in and out before taking a running leap and landing on the roof, immediately hiding behind one of the doors that go into the building. He waited, looking around to see if there was a laser sight, but he didn't see anything. At first, he thought that it was probably on the other side of the brick wall he was hiding behind, but as he went from cover to cover, he realized that he didn't see any laser sight, even with it being difficult to see due to it being daytime.

Confused, he decided just to keep going, diving out from the last piece of cover and grabbing the bag, rolling as he hit the ground behind the opposite cover.

Sly quickly checked inside the bag and saw that all of the jewels were still there. Breathing a sigh of relief, Sly was about to make his way back to the safe house when one of the doors suddenly opened and a large wolf appeared on the roof.

The wolf seemed to be dressed for some occasion, as he was wearing a white shirt, and black pants, shoes and tie. He also had a stern look on his face, accentuated by a scar on his left eye. What caught Sly's eye, though, was that he also had on a pair of black gloves as well. He wasn't at all sure what the meaning behind his gloves was, so he decided to talk to him.

"Sorry if I was making a lot of noise. I'm just going to leave now."

He turned around; making like he was about to leave, but the wolf suddenly spoke, while retaining the stern look.

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Sly Cooper." he said in a thick Russian accent.

"Wait, how do you know my name?"

The wolf spread his arms wide.

"Don't you remember me, Cooper? I remember all the time I spent chasing you and your little gang down years ago."

Sly looked at the wolf, trying to rack his brain to figure out what he was talking about.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what you're talking about."

Disappointed, the wolf began thinking, trying to figure out a way to jog Sly's memory.

"Well, do you remember Russia?"

"Vaguely."

Sly couldn't exactly remember much about their time spent in Russia, considering he as well as Bentley and Murray hated spending time there thanks to the cold weather. But it was the only place where the jobs were simple enough that a greenhorn like Sly was at that age could hone his skills.

One moment he did remember came a month before they finally left Russia for good.

* * *

It was a cold night in St. Petersburg. A 16-year old Sly Cooper has just stolen a ruby from the museum, and on his tail was the wolf, who had similar clothes on as to what he was wearing now, except for the lack of gloves and the Interpol badge that he had on his chest.

As Sly was being chased, the wolf was wildly firing shock pistol bolts in his direction with a look of pure anger on his face. You see, during the three years that the Cooper Gang spent in Russia, they had many different run-ins with the wolf, and just like they did now with Carmelita, they got away every time.

However, unlike Carmelita, the wolf was very mentally fragile, so the constant failures led to him becoming increasingly unstable, up until the point where he would do anything to catch Sly.

The wolf's luck would turn around today, though, as Sly tripped and fell, being less nimble as he is now. This allowed the wolf to catch up, and as Sly got up to continue moving, he was stopped by the shock pistol being pointed right at his head.

"Не двигайся, Купер! (Don't move, Cooper!)" said the wolf.

Sly froze, doing as he was asked, yet still holding the cane in his hand.

"Хорошо, у вас есть мне Антон. (Alright, you've got me Anton.)" said Sly.

The wolf chuckled as he pulled out his handcuffs, intending to bring Sly in, but the raccoon already had a plan in mind. As Anton reached up to grab Sly's hand, Sly immediately dove forward and rolled, facing towards Anton as he got up and slashed at him with his cane. Unfortunately, his aim wasn't where he wanted it to be, so he ended up getting Anton in the eye with the edge of the cane.

Anton immediately clutched at his left eye as it started bleeding profusely.

"Черт бы тебя побрал, Купер! (Damn you, Cooper!)" he yelled.

Sly was conflicted as to whether he should help him or not, considering the injury was his fault. But he knew that if he did, he probably would end up getting arrested soon after, so he immediately ran off.

"Черт бы тебя побрал! (Damn you!)" yelled Anton again as Sly continued running, his voice disappearing into the distance.

* * *

Sly gasped as he suddenly remembered the wolf's name.

"I remember you! You're Anton Sobolev, the guy who was assigned to our case when we were in Russia!"

"Well, now you remember! And to think you forgot dear old Anton." said the wolf with mock sadness.

"I see you've finally learned some English. That's good. I didn't like talking to you in Russian that much."

Anton was immediately angered at Sly's jab. He reached behind his back and pulled out a 9 millimeter handgun. Thankfully he didn't fire, instead pointing it at Sly as the raccoon backed away, his hands in the air.

"Whoa there, buddy. That looks to me like a real gun. I don't remember Interpol regulations allowing the use of real guns."

Anton smirked before replying.

"Ex-Interpol, Cooper. I got blacklisted after killing a suspect, which leaves me free to get my revenge on you and your pathetic gang."

Sly was noticeably more nervous after hearing that Anton wasn't bound to the rules anymore. He decided to try and distract him to buy some time to escape.

"Listen Anton, before you kill me, would you mind answering me one question?"

"What is it, Cooper? My trigger finger is getting itchy."

Sly gave him a weird look at the odd choice of words before continuing to speak.

"Why? Why do you want to kill us so badly?"

"It's simple. I had everything while I was working with Interpol. But when I got assigned to you, everything fell apart. My career was ruined. I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted revenge, but I couldn't do it while restricted to those stupid Interpol regulations. But now I can do whatever I want."

Anton adopted a sick smile as he prepared to fire.

"Goodbye, Cooper. I'll see you in hell."

Anton slowly squeezed the trigger, but before he could completely fire the 9mm, Sly dropped a smoke bomb that he was secretly carrying in his cane hand, catching Anton off guard and sending his shot off its target. Sensing his moment, Sly took his chance and ran off, Anton firing off as many shots as he could at the fleeing master thief.

"Don't think you can hide from me, Sly Cooper! I'll find you and your little gang, even if I have to chase you to the ends of the Earth to find you!" yelled Anton at Sly's retreating form, punctuating it with a psychotic laugh.

* * *

Sly returned to the safe house a half an hour later, barreling through the door and shutting it behind him.

"Sly, what's going on?" asked Murray, confused as he and Bentley looked at the heavily breathing Sly pressed up against the door.

"You're not going to believe who the shooter was."

* * *

**Credit goes to Google Translator for the Russian translations during the flashback.**

**And no, the ending isn't a true cliffhanger. It's only a cliffhanger for Bentley and Murray's sake, considering they don't know about Sobolev's presence.**


End file.
